Rep. Braun lets his hateful record speak for him as Indiana GOP accepts humiliating floor fight over discriminatory language

INDIANAPOLIS – As the Indiana GOP caves to a rebellion by its hardline factions over keeping discriminatory language in its party platform, Rep. Braun has let his hateful record speak for itself instead of embracing his role as a leader of his party and taking a stance.

Indiana Republican Chair Kyle Hupfer told supporters in an email yesterday that delegates to Saturday’s GOP convention will vote on whether to keep discriminatory language defining marriage as between a man and a woman in the party’s platform. The announcement came following an outcry from hardline conservatives when a leaked version of the platform showed that the party had finally dropped the backwards, Pence-era language. Now that leadership appears to have caved to hardline conservatives and given them the floor fight they wanted, convention-goers will choose between the old language and the controversial draft language.

The Indiana GOP’s “hedge” on its attempt to curtail its blatantly discriminatory platform might have been averted by stronger leadership from the party’s standard bearers like Rep. Braun. However, Rep. Braun still has yet to weigh in on the platform, the floor fight, or whether the party as a whole should break from its Pence-era positions. Instead, after coming out as recently as December against marriage equality, he seems content to let his archaic record speak for itself.

“The Indiana GOP’s catastrophic attempt to ditch its discriminatory anti-gay marriage language, only to be shouted down publicly by its own membership, may be the party’s largest fiasco since RFRA,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Failing to have a single Republican leader speak out against this hateful, Pence-era stain on our state’s reputation isn’t just shameful, it’s political malpractice. If Rep. Braun is willing to let his party publicly come out, again, against marriage equality, he’s more out of touch with Hoosiers than we realized.”